Guitar Lessons, Tabs and Sheet Music

Jazz Metal. Melodic Minor Licks

If you’ve been following our series of articles devoted to the melodic minor scale and its modes, these examples shouldn’t be too difficult to understand. However, most of them will present technical difficulties when played at full tempo. In this lesson, we’re going to conclude our recent series on the modes of melodic minor by looking at how I use some of these scales in my music. Before getting started, though, we should summarise some of the things that we have learned about the melodic minor modes in general. Purely for the sake of convenience, we are once again going to take a look at C melodic minor and its modes, as this particular scale has only one flat (Eb):

The excerpts

I based this riff around the two major triads that exist within D melodic minor, G and A. Make sure that you bring out the accents where they are marked on the transcription.

Exercise 2:

The first chord is Bm7b5. If you look at the modes of melodic minor that I mentioned earlier, you’ll see that B Locrian nat 2 would be the most suitable scale for this chord. As you can see, I employ a straightforward sequence based on Bm7b5 pentatonic scale

The second chord is E7alt. Again, if you look back at the list of modes, you’ll see that Superlocrian would be the most suitable scale to use from E.

E Superlocrian is the seventh mode of F melodic minor, and the lick in second bar of Exercise 2 is based around the two major triads that exist within this particular melodic minor key, Bb(IV -Lydian b7 triad) and C (V – Mixolydian b6). Note how I’ve added the # 11 interval to the Bb triad in order to create a major add #11 arpeggio.

Melodic minor. An open invitation

Exercise 3: All the chords behind this four-bar excerpt are derived from A melodic minor. The tonal centre is F#, so, when I play this, I think in terms of the sixth mode of A melodic minor, F# Locrian nat 2. The first bar features some chromatic notes but, like most chromatic notes, these are used to pass from one scale note to the next (G is used to pass from F# to G#, whereas C# is used to pass from D to C). Note the use of triads in this excerpt: there is an E major triad played on the fourth beat of bar 1. In bar 2, there’s an Am triad on the first beat and an F#m7b5 arpeggio played on beats two and three. In bar 3, there’s an E major triad played on the second beat and an Amin/maj7 arpeggio played on beats three and four. Make sure that you follow the accents as written (they look like an upstroke lying on their side above the dots in question). These sounds have to be played louder than the others.

Exercise 4: This final excerpt is effectively, the previous lick shifted up in intervals of a minor third. Consequently, the chords move up accordingly. Again, make sure that you closely follow the accents as written in the transcription.

Closing notes

Well, that wraps up our look at the modes of melodic minor. I hope that this recent series has given you some ideas that you can use in your own improvisation and compositions. I’m sure you’ll agree that, when placed in context, these modes don’t sound strange at all.